CIA and FBI win blackout on rendition claims

Intelligence services in the US have won a legal ruling to allow them to
withhold evidence about suspected British involvement in the arrest and
torture of terror suspects from MPs in the UK, it was reported.

A judge in Washington DC has allowed the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency to use a loophole to keep information from MPs that might include information about the complicity of UK authorities in extraordinary rendition.

Under US freedom of information laws, the release of documents to anyone representing a foreign government can be blocked.

According to the Independent, the CIA won the ruling after the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition made a number of requests for information while members investigated the UK's knowledge of torture against terror suspects.

Tony Lloyd, vice-chairman of the cross-party group, told the newspaper the judgment was "disappointing" and had been sought to avoid embarrassment.

"It suggests this material is not really something that affects national security or intelligence, but is being withheld to prevent the embarrassment of officials,” he said.

The ruling emerged as Downing Street called for police to interview former Labour ministers including former Home Secretary Jack Straw over the alleged rendition and torture of a Libyan critic of Colonel Gaddafi.

Tony Blair could also be questioned, according to the Daily Mail.

The Metropolitan Police are investigating claims that MI6 tipped off the CIA about the location of Abdel Hakim Belhadj and his wife in 2004 before Mr Blair signed the deal in the desert with Gaddafi.

Asked if police should interview former ministers, a spokesman for the Prime Minister said: “They need to follow the evidence wherever it takes them.”

MPs investigating UK complicity in torture made requests to the CIA for details on 43 separate topics in late 2008, focusing on "various aspects of the US and the UK's involvement in extraordinary rendition, secret detention, coercive interrogation of suspected terrorists and the sources of information about alleged terrorist plots."

The FBI released some information before refusing further disclosures. A judge has now ruled MPs are representatives of a foreign government and not independent legislators.